Dar es Salaam. Preparations for this year’s East African Business Summit have started in earnest with over 100 Chief Executive Officers from top companies in the region expected to attend.
Among those expected to confirm attendance at the exclusive high level summit are CEOs from Tananiza, Uganda, Rwanda and Kenya, keen to grow their businesses through innovation and tap into emerging opportunities in the region.
At a media briefing held in Dar es Salaam over the weekend, one of the members of the Steering committee of the summit, Mr Jamal Hussein, said the business community was looking at the summit as a catalyst for corporate and governments’ efforts to make the East African Community an attractive and formidable economic trading block.
The summit, which will be held on November 17 to 20 in Kenya, is the fifth one since the first summit held in 2002, and has been designed to respond to some of the current challenges affecting businesses and find ways to move to the next level.
“This year, the summit will build on our past successes, and explore ways to navigate the numerous emerging opportunities in Africa.
In particular, we are hoping to understand how CEOs’ decision about strategies and operating models shape changes in the business landscape,” said Mr Hussein, who is also the managing director of Citibank Tanzania.
The summit was born in 2002 when the leaders of six convening firms Citibank N.A., Deloitte, KPMG, Nation Media Group, PWC and Serena Hotels brought together leaders in business and industry.
“It is through such meeting, East African companies can gather and decide to merge and form joint ventures to tap the regional potentials more strongly instead of waiting for foreign investors. And this time around we want Tanzanian companies to shine by showing full participation,” said Mr Salim Bashir, a Partner at KPMG and a member of the steering committee.
Some of the key topics that will be covered during the session include; harnessing innovation in a growth economy, social media and marketing thinking, managing talent for innovation and funding innovation.
Previous summits, includes one held in Ngurdoto in Tanzania in 2004, which came up with workable plans such as the East African Community integration.
source:TheCitizen
